Bodies lay here and there like so many discarded dolls, each swimming in a pool of its own fluids. Steam still escaped them from time to time, the room being painfully cold in the evening hours of late fall. Tables and chairs lay overturned or broken and naught but a single candle still sputtered from a hanger upon one cobblestone wall. Here a wicked deed had been done: a deed born of evil, malice and hunger. There had been peace and happiness here once, though from this day forward none would remember it. Forever it would remain tainted, the air tasting of iron and smelling of decay. Yet before the sun broke the horizon, she lay relaxing upon the bar of the macabre tavern, enjoying the sensations that flowed through her nude body. Naught but blood was upon her skin, yet it felt as if her lover were inside her, such was the ecstasy that came from feeding. Anna awoke with a start, sitting up rapidly in the hope of banishing the nightmare that threatened to bring tears to her eyes, even now as its details faded.
